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Monday, April 30, 2012

April 2012 Recap

I can't believe it's already the last day in April, so I thought this would be a good time to start a monthly recap tradition. Even though there are lingering WIPs, I know I got some stuff done this month. I thought it would be encouraging to go into May with an overview of the things I actually accomplished in April.

Rose Star Blocks

I only finished one this month. If I can get my design work and cutting done ahead of time, it would be no problem to turn out one of these a week just working on them in found time. Crafty hero, Clare with selfsewn, has a great tutorial!

Summer Sampler Series Blocks: Greek Cross

These guys are winners. The blocks are so cute, and I love the way they turned out with the fabrics I pulled from my limited stash. The best thing is the new skills I've been picking up while working on them. I'll keep making them to swap with the Austin Modern Quilt Guild, and hopefully I can make enough for myself to craft up some sort of quilt.

Free-Motion Quilting Practice

I did get in a little FMQ practice in April. I'd be down for trying some all-over FMQ on a finished quilt at this point, I just need to get quilting thread in more colors. This most recent attempt was pretty tough, since I was following traced pencil lines from a template pattern. I threw in some all-over squiggles, squares, and echoing to further discourage myself ;-)

I worked very intensely on this quilt for two weeks. It was tough, but I love how it turned out. There are definitely some changes I'd make, but it has pattern potential. I picked up a few new skills while working out the kinks, but a couple of changes would make the quilt top come together much faster. Also, quilting densely with my walking foot was very time consuming. If I'd had the right color thread on hand, all-over FMQ would have been a big timesaver.